Nearly 100 7-Eleven stores around the country got a big surprise in the pre-dawn hours of January 10 as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came a-knocking, looking for employers who weren’t bothering to make sure their workers were actually U.S. citizens. Of course, even that way of putting it doesn’t get to the heart of the matter, which is that many of these employers – and 7-Eleven is hardly the only company with this systemic problem – actively seek out illegal immigrants to hire because they will accept harsh conditions and low pay with no recourse.

From the Daily Caller:

Investigators served so-called notices of inspection (NOIs), which are audits of employment paperwork to find out if a company’s employees are authorized to work in the U.S. NOIs were served at 7-Eleven stores in Washington, D.C., California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.

ICE officials said the operation was a “harbinger of what’s to come,” referring to the Trump administration’s intent to investigate employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants or discriminate against U.S. workers.

“This is what we’re gearing up for this year and what you’re going to see more and more of is these large-scale compliance inspections, just for starters,” Derek Benner, a top ICE official, told the Associated Press. “From there, we will look at whether these cases warrant an administrative posture or criminal investigation.”

Stopping illegal immigrants from coming across the border is important; preventing visitors to the U.S. from overstaying their visa term limits is also important. But it is equally important to begin taking away the carrots that lure illegal aliens to our country in the first place, and this is proof that the Trump administration understands that. If we don’t have thousands of U.S. businesses offering employment to those without papers, we don’t have hundreds of thousands of illegals swarming the border every year. No, not all of them come over looking for gainful employment, that much is for certain, but enough of them do to make this an essential priority for the president.